Money "hand outs"

I guess no one thinks how this present government works;everything is "bribed". For instance with the Kavanaugh thing , Collins was against, but a bit later for it; she got a call from Trump and got a "bonus" out of trumps "slush" fund I guess. The same applies to Flake who pulled that trick many times. In the meantime McConnell (now the richest man in Kentucky) gets money all the time as long as he obstructs and get the GOP wanted "judges" elected. How otherwise he got so rich? How come Trump is so obsessed with the "wall"? The reason is obvious, he already made an deal with certain contractors, so his "back pockets" get filled and don't want to miss out on that lucrative deal, since he knows that will be an"milk cow" forever since this "wall" will cost in the end billions more than 6.5 Billion. In the meantime he "paid" off Romney as well to support him on the wall.Who is going to research these "payoffs", because that is not Muellers task. I bet lots of that money comes from a "slush fund" which trump had as left over or earned illegally or from the inauguration which fund was about 100 million of which only half was spent. Trump likely uses this now to pay the bribes. I still have the impression that people here are so ignorant/naive of these things and still think our government is "honest". Forget it!!!

Furthermore Trump is making money as "water" from all kind of things as well promotional things; there is an site on which you can buy all kinds of Trump articles or products, including Trump wine, bottle openers, golf articles and stickers. He is enriching himself by having this job. If Ivanka is not allowed to have an clothing line, what about Trump himself having an "giftshop" . Let alone the money he makes from Mar-a-Lago and other properties.

Dutch -- You make a lot of unfounded allegations. Yes many in the government are corrupt in the sense that they have sold their votes for money during the campaigns. Or to put it another way, their existing worldviews are enhanced by outside money. I certainly contribute to candidates whose views on the issues conform with mine, but I have no vested financial interest other than to worry about the economic and environmental world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. And I think globally...not necessarily "America first".

Donald Trump certainly is one who eyes everything with a "what's in it for me" outlook, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything that he does is directly money driven. Trump has needed to keep his base intact, and for the far right nativists in his base (e.g. Ann Coulter) that means anti-immigration and "the wall". It is hard to see how he would derive personal wealth specifically from the building of the wall. He doesn't control the process for the contracts to be let and he doesn't own the land. He has no technical or engineering know-how that could be sold. Only his brand name. What he derives, however, is political loyalty from one part of his base.

Dutch -- You make a lot of unfounded allegations. Yes many in the government are corrupt in the sense that they have sold their votes for money during the campaigns. Or to put it another way, their existing worldviews are enhanced by outside money. I certainly contribute to candidates whose views on the issues conform with mine, but I have no vested financial interest other than to worry about the economic and environmental world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. And I think globally...not necessarily "America first".

Donald Trump certainly is one who eyes everything with a "what's in it for me" outlook, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything that he does is directly money driven. Trump has needed to keep his base intact, and for the far right nativists in his base (e.g. Ann Coulter) that means anti-immigration and "the wall". It is hard to see how he would derive personal wealth specifically from the building of the wall. He doesn't control the process for the contracts to be let and he doesn't own the land. He has no technical or engineering know-how that could be sold. Only his brand name. What he derives, however, is political loyalty from one part of his base.

Sorry, you are naive. Trump has had always "contacts" with builders and always had "kickbacks"; I guess you don't know how that works in New York ; the "mob" runs the show ; he always gets "something" (influence peddling via money) that is the way it works. My neighbor was an lobbyist in Washington; even in the times without Trump, "money" changed hands all the time. It is now just like in any other banana republic. I guess you did not read about the "raise" either; it is not only the 10K; some of them which he "needs", get a lot more than that; ask McConnell. Wake up Schmidt, you should know better. Did you drink perhaps some Trump wine? Why do you think Trump wanted this job? Yes, to enrich himself!

Sorry, but this has nothing to do with his "base"; he does not care about that at all; he sees "$ signs" that is all what counts.

You've got the right church, but the wrong pew. McConnell HAS benefited financially from his position of power, but he is nowhere near the richest man in Kentucky. THAT guy is named B. Wayne Hughes, the founder of Public Storage, the largest self-storage company in the United States. He is worth $2.7 billion, according to the most recent issue of Forbes.

Mitch McConnell's net worth is "only" $27 million, which makes him the 11th richest man in the Senate.

The bulk of his fortune is due to the fact that he "married well". He married Elaine Chao in 1993. After her mother died in 2007, McConnell received a tax-exempt money market fund valued between $5 million and $25 million as a gift from "a filers relative."

How he benefited financially from his position of power is highlighted from this paragraph in the Wikipedia article about him:

On January 2, 2013, the Public Campaign Action Fund, a liberal nonprofit group that backs stronger campaign finance regulation, released a report highlighting eight instances from McConnell's political career in which a vote or a blocked vote (filibuster), coincided with an influx of campaign contributions to McConnell's campaign.

In 2015, Time magazine labeled him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, even though he was the ONLY senator that year who had a negative approval rating. The negative rating came roughly a year after he was re-elected to his 6th term of office.

Although he initially supported Rand Paul in the 2016 presidential race, he switched his support to Trump on May 4, 2016. With regard to the US response to intelligence findings that Russia was responsible for cyberattacks undertaken to influence the American election, after Trump won the election, Senator McConnell expressed "support for investigating American intelligence findings that Moscow intervened."Prior to the election, however, when FBI Director James Comey, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and other officials met with the leadership of both parties to make the case for a bipartisan statement warning Russia that such actions would not be tolerated, "McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics," The Washington Post reported,citing accounts of several unnamed officials.

Since Trump values loyalty over everything else, he nominated Elaine Chao to be the Secretary of Transportation shortly after the 2016 election, and she took office on January 31, 2017.

In November 2017, McConnell was opposed to passing legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In April 2018, less than 24 hours after an FBI raid on Michael Cohen's (President Trump's personal attorney) office, and after Trump had said that "many people" had asked him to fire Mueller, McConnell reiterated that he opposed any legislation to protect Mueller's investigation. Later that month, McConnell thwarted a bipartisan legislative effort to protect Mueller's investigation.

In November 2018, McConnell told reporters that legislation protecting Mueller was unnecessary and a bill by Jeff Flake would not come up in the Senate since Mueller was "not under threat", citing President Trump as having repeatedly stated the investigation would be allowed to finish. McConnell opined that he could not imagine Trump dismissing the investigation and told reporters they were "trying to get me to speculate about things that I'm confident are not going to happen."

Apparently McConnell does not read newspapers. If he had, he would have read an April 2018 article in the New York Times that published the fact that Trump had to tried to fire Mueller in June of 2017 and December of 2017:

There are still a "few shoes that are going to drop" in the Mueller investigation, and they are Donald Jr., Jared Kuchner, and Ivanka. Once the dust settles on those items, it is not inconceivable that McConnell himself could face charges himself for obstructing justice.

Arizona, thanks for your excellent reply; I don't remember who it said that he was the richest person in Kentucky; I did not invent it. Probably an commentator on TV. But as always you do your research in an excellent way . The only comment which I stand with, is the total corruption in Washington. Also "votes" are bought in Congress, as well in our elections. The only solution is: No "money" in elections or in "governing", no lobbyists access to any of the government employees or "leaders". As is done in some other civilized countries.

Quite simple, if (Super) Pac's are allowed, then the same "group" of people do influence peddling all the time, not only during elections. I was in the middle of an deal with the government and knew what the competition (Lockheed/Gulfstream) was doing with lots of money and "lobbyists" in Washington. Nothing has changed since I was involved and has gotten only worse.

Neither does "Schmidt" dares to say that Trumps "wine sales" etc. are illegal, let alone all the other things where he got income from. Sorry to say, it is an huge list.Corruption reigns here! (Maybe you can research and publish this list)

Prosperity will solve all problems. Our financial system is driven by opportunistic capitalization of events. The country needs to learn to institutionalize and earn money from production and not spdculation. IPOs have to base stock releases on company capitalization and there has to be a required holding time on each new transaction before it can be traded.